


Keeper of Secrets: Jonathan

by kaiz



Series: Barnsaldr-nithrlag (Childhood's End) [3]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-10
Updated: 2010-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:57:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaiz/pseuds/kaiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jonathan (Clone!Jack) and Daniel have a long-awaited, exceedingly awkward conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeper of Secrets: Jonathan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arsenic Jade](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Arsenic+Jade).



"There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in."

  


\--Graham Greene

  


*

Jonathan and his friends exited the school building and cut across the lawn. It was nearly half-past six; the sky was streaked gold and pink with the coming sunset and the lawn and sidewalk were damp from the sprinklers. A line of cars waited in the front parking lot: parents picking their kids up from after-school activities, mostly, and a few seniors hanging around, smoking and slacking.

Having neither parents nor a car that he could legally drive, Jonathan hefted his gym bag and backpack and headed for home on foot. His friends followed. Darius, because his mother's car was parked along the street near the corner. Brett and Electra, because they'd caved in to Jonathan and Darius's carping about getting more exercise. They also lived within a few blocks of Jonathan's house.

"Huh," Brett said. "There's that car again."

Electra looked around. "What car?"

Jonathan ignored them both and kept walking; he knew damned well which car Brett meant.

"That car. See it? The gold hybrid parked in front of the pickup truck."

Off to Jonathan's left, Darius paused, checked out the car, then lengthened his stride to catch up with them again. "So? What about it?"

"Nothing. Just, this is like the fifth time I've seen it in the last couple of weeks."

"Weird," Darius agreed.

Electra shrugged. "Why weird? It's probably just somebody's dad or something."

"Or not. Look how old the guy is."

"Fine. It's somebody's older brother. Uncle. Pedophile stalker. Whatever. Who cares?"

_Or ex-friend, ex-lover, ex-_everything_ from another life._ Jonathan pushed the thought away.

"Well, whoever it is, I guess he knows you, Jonathan." Darius nudged his elbow and he was forced to look.

Daniel had rolled down the window and was watching him, one hand raised in a tentative wave.

So. Daniel had finally worked up enough courage to show himself. Jonathan's stomach lurched and for a moment, he was free-falling, exhilarated and nauseated all at once. As with Thor, his feelings still went bone deep. Didn't matter that his bones were less arthritic than O'Neill's or that the memories in which they were rooted didn't belong solely to Jonathan.

He sighed and walked over to the car. Brett, Electra, and Darius clustered around him bristling with curiosity.

"Hi Jonathan," Daniel said. "How are you? Uh, who are your friends?"

"Hey." Jonathan let his bags slide to the ground and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "This is Darius Kipp, Brett Davies, and Electra Nguyen." Electra practically beamed at him; she hated her birth name of Stacy. "Everyone, this is Doctor Jackson, he's a...a friend of my parents."

Daniel looked upset at that but Jonathan gritted his teeth and thought, _Yeah? Too fucking bad, Danny._

The silence stretched uncomfortably until Daniel blurted, "You guys need a ride somewhere?"

Darius declined, of course, but Jonathan could tell that Darius would grill him about it sooner rather than later; Darius's parents had given him an unlimited texting plan after he'd aced his calculus midterms. Brett and Electra quickly agreed. Their backpacks were stuffed and they always complained about the length of the walk home anyway. Bunch of wusses.

After a flurry of good-byes to Darius, they all piled into Daniel's car with Jonathan taking shotgun.

The ride home was excruciating, although it had a few moments of mild hilarity courtesy of his friends.

"So, Doctor Jackson. Like, how do you know Jonathan's parents?" Electra wanted to know.

Daniel tried to catch his eye but Jonathan turned his head and stared fixedly out the window.

"We, ah, sometimes work together," Daniel said after a pause.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow at his own reflection in the glass, curious despite himself to hear Daniel's cover story. Assuming that he or the SGC had prepared one.

"Yeah?" Electra said. "What's your specialty then? Both my parents are anesthesiologists."

"Uh, I'm not. That is, I'm not a medical doctor. I'm an anthropologist."

Nope, no cover story, Daniel was totally winging it in a car full of nosy teenagers. Jonathan wasn't sure whether to laugh or cringe.

"Dude, seriously?" Brett said. Jonathan's seat back dipped as Brett slithered out of his seat belt then looped his arms over Jonathan's shoulders. "The VA hires anthropologists?"

Daniel waved his left hand, the right was white-knuckling the steering wheel. "Well..." he began.

"Because, if so, then, that's really cool!" The seat creaked and Jonathan nearly choked as Brett tightened his arms. "I totally did not know that."

"How does that even work?" Electra said. "You do cross-cultural medical consulting or something? Translate or whatever for patients and their families? My parents sometimes use translators, for Spanish mostly, but for other languages they don't really speak. My parents I mean, with the not-speaking, not the patients."

Before Daniel could reply, Brett exclaimed, "Oh! Is it, like, alternative medicine? Acupuncture, Reiki, Traditional Chinese Medicine and that kind of shit--I mean, stuff?" He waved his arms around, thankfully releasing his choke-hold on Jonathan's neck in the process. "Because my mom gets acupuncture all the time for her back. Says it works great."

"Well, yes," Daniel said after a strategic pause, probably to muster his bullshitting skills. "It's kind of like all of that, actually. The doctors aren't always familiar with the cultural practices of their patients, so I act as a kind of bridge between the two worlds. Making sure that patients get the help that they need and that the doctors don't needlessly violate any important cultural customs."

"Huh. That's definitely pretty cool," Electra said. "So you were over there today, doing that?"

"Um, yes. Yes, I was."

"And the last couple of weeks, too?" Brett said.

Jonathan nearly groaned aloud; he knew that deceptively mild tone of voice. He also knew that green-haired, abundantly pierced Brett Davies had the unlikely career aspiration of becoming an FBI agent. This couldn't possibly end well.

"Yes, actually. I've been working with them for the past month."

"Uh, huh," Brett agreed. "So, what, they asked you to stalk Jonathan for a few weeks and then give him a ride home?"

From the corner of his eye, Jonathan could see Daniel making a silent, rather desperate appeal, in his direction. Jonathan leaned his temple against the window and bit his cheek to keep from laughing.

*

When he and Daniel drove up in front of the house, two familiar cars were already parked in his driveway; Jonathan's faint amusement evaporated. Though, to be honest, it didn't take much these days.

He unlocked the front door, with Daniel close behind him, then walked through the foyer and into the front room.

Travell peered at him, slit-eyed, from her customary perch on the back of the couch and Maybourne was nowhere to be seen. Cat was probably hiding beneath a piece of furniture, as usual, waiting for the right moment to pounce. Allen and Hayes, however, had once again commandeered the table in the adjacent dining room. There, they'd spread out their laptops and a truly frightening pile of medical journals, charts, graphs, and other printouts. A smaller pile of steaming takeout cartons sat off to one side.

"Jonathan," Hayes said, her eyes widening when she spotted Daniel. "And Daniel! How good to see you. I thought you'd gone off-world again last night."

"Hey Jonathan, Dr. Jackson," Allen said, looking up from his keyboard. "You guys hungry? Want some Thai food? Jonathan, we ordered vegetarian for you."

Jonathan wasn't in the mood for pleasantries, especially since his name and biometric data featured prominently on the printouts. He paused by the couch to scritch Travell's tufted ears then strode across the room and dropped his gear on the dining room threshold. "Hayes, Allen. Leave. Now," he said, surprised that his voice was steady.

Hayes gave him a level stare. "Jonathan. We've discussed this before."

Jonathan was unimpressed. Since Janet's death, he, Hayes, and Allen had been aggressively re-negotiating the boundaries of this live-in shrink/internist/quasi-paid-friend/keeper thing. Enough was enough. "We didn't discuss. You talked, I ignored you. Now, get out of my house. Both of you."

To his credit, Allen didn't need to be told thrice: he'd lost two laptops and several hundred gigabytes of mangled, degaussed, or otherwise rendered unreadable USB sticks and portable disk drives to Jonathan's outrage. Without another word, he grabbed his laptop off the table, his coat and keys from the hook in the foyer, and made tracks out the door.

Hayes was another matter. After all, Jonathan's mental state was her job, one she took very seriously. He had the ground down molars and nascent TMJ to prove it.

Her glare intensified. "Jonathan."

Jonathan responded with one of his own. It might have lost it's full potency when he de-aged, but he had it on good authority from his friends that it was still damned effective. "Janis."

"Uh, I can go, if this is a bad time," Daniel ventured.

"You are a guest in _my_ house. You stay. Hayes goes."

Janis rose from her chair, took a step, then leaned into his space. "Petulant adolescent is not a good look on you, McNeal."

"And voyeurism and objectification don't do much to bring out the color of your eyes, either, Major."

"Your current and continued good health is our professional responsibility. As a former commander, you should know and respect that."

Which he did, of course. None of which made it any easier to tolerate Hayes and Allen turning what should be his private home into a goddamned zoo where he was the special exhibit du jour. On display now! One ex-Air Force Colonel. Cloned, de-aged, stripped of nearly every social tie, left hanging by his so-called grown-up friends. Watch him as he struggles with his vastly changed circumstances! Evaluate his physical, emotional, and psychological progress as he experiences the drama of adolescence and high school one more time! See how well, or not, he deals with the death of his closest friend!

"Yeah, and as an experienced clinical and research psychiatrist, _you_ should know that 'the subject is resistant to close observation' and 'often displays hostility and aggression' upon repeated intrusions into his personal fucking space!" The house rang briefly with silence; Janis' pained expression was oh, so sweet. "Listen, Hayes, the guilt trips won't work anymore. I'm _me_, not him, and Not Him has had it with this bullshit. Right now, you're over the line and I want you out."

Janis studied him for a long moment, no doubt noting his shaking hands, the extent of his weight loss, and his eyes, red-rimmed from lack of sleep. She made a move towards the bedrooms at the back of the house. "I'll just--"

"_Not_ in the other room. Out of the house, entirely."

Given the stubborn set to her jaw, Jonathan expected her to continue to argue the point. But after a moment, she huffed and said, "Fine."

Daniel wisely said nothing, just stood beside him as Janis gathered up her things and left the house with a final, worried look over her shoulder.

Jonathan pinched the bridge of his nose. Her quick capitulation didn't bode well. He suspected that he'd won a minor skirmish in what was shaping up to be a very protracted and nasty war.

He took the few steps into the dining room table and swept the printouts and medical journals to the floor. Maybourne, who'd been lurking beneath the pile, howled at the sudden exposure and leapt from the table in a flash of black and white fur. He took snarling refuge under the couch.

Jonathan ignored the cat and Daniel's shocked expression and began opening the takeout cartons.

"So, Daniel. You want some Pad Thai?" he said, holding out a pair of chopsticks.

*

They ate in silence.

Or rather, they both picked at their food in silence. Daniel, because he kept sneaking looks at Jonathan. Jonathan, because lately, everything he ate tasted like sawdust or snot.

Eventually, he grew bored with rearranging the noodles and chunks of tofu and irritated by Daniel's nervous glances. He set the carton down and tossed his chopsticks aside. The sooner started, the sooner this unpleasant business would be finished. "So. I assume there's some reason that, as Brett said, you've been stalking me for the past month?"

"Yes." Daniel set down his own chopsticks and sighed. "Yes, there is."

The silence stretched uneasily between them. It was disconcerting to see Daniel so hesitant. At the very least, Jonathan had expected to be pestered about what had just gone down with Hayes and Allen. Instead, there was this tense, uncharacteristic...whatever it was.

"Well?"

"I wanted to..." Daniel shifted in his chair. "I guess I wanted," he began then fell silent again.

"You wanted?" Jonathan prompted with a lift of his eyebrow. But honestly, he didn't really care what Daniel wanted. What _he_ wanted was this so-called conversation to be over and done with. Whatever Daniel's purpose here, to catch up, to renew old ties, to fucking bond, to _whatever,_ Jonathan wanted no part of any of it.

He really did not.

By the time he'd counted to twenty, Daniel, Doctor Ready Glib Response, Never Let'em Get A Word In Edgewise, still hadn't managed to say a damned thing and Jonathan decided that he'd had enough of Daniel's presence, too.

"You know what? Screw this." He rose from his chair and leaned on the table. "Out with it or leave, Daniel. I've got three hours of home work ahead of me, ten miles to run before school tomorrow morning, and I have no intention of playing guessing games all night. What the hell do you want?"

"Jonathan, I'm sorry," Daniel said quickly, and Jonathan looked away from the muted anguish in his eyes. "I'm sorry that I haven't been in touch. After you left the base, Jack said you said it would be too weird and--"

"I swear to god." Jonathan balled his hands into fists and leaned on his knuckles. "Do not bullshit me, Doctor Jackson. Do not--"

"--And I've been," Daniel visibly steeled himself, "I've been remembering things."

Jonathan's stomach rolled over once, twice, and it was a long moment before he could find either his balance or his voice. Oma Desala had taken Daniel's memories and yet, here he was _remembering things._ Ten to one, they were exactly the sort of _things_ that Jonathan himself did not want to remember. Or ever think about, or jerk off in the shower over. Anymore. _At all._

Finger by finger, he managed to unclench his fists, but discovered that he needed to grip the table to keep the room from slipping sideways. Apparently his balance was still AWOL; good to know. "You've got access to all SG-1's mission reports and your clearance is high enough for Hammond to give you any other details you'd want to know," he managed to say.

"Things about us. I mean, about me...and Jack." Daniel had been looking down at his hands, but he raised his head and met Jonathan's eyes when he said, "The kind of things that wouldn't show up in any mission report, Jonathan."

"You've got Carter, and Teal'c, and Hammond. Hell, you've got O'Neill. You don't need me."

"But I do!" Daniel yelled. He stood abruptly and his chair skittered across the floor. "Because I can't ask him. He refuses to talk to me about it!"

Oh _hell_ no. Jonathan shook his head and stepped away from the table. "Well, you know what? You can't ask me either."

Daniel grabbed his arm before he could storm out of the room. "Jonathan, please."

Despite himself, hating the way his body remembered and responded to that touch, Jonathan paused. His eyes slid shut as he tried to still the tremors and banish the memories. After a moment, he blinked again and stared blindly at Hathor who was draped over a branch in her tank. His chest felt too tight and his blood hammered in his ears.

"For the longest time," Daniel began, his voice hushed. "I didn't have the memories but I still had the _feelings._ I didn't know what they meant. The feelings felt _old_, as if I'd had them for a long time, and I thought," He laughed, a tense, unhappy sound. "I thought that maybe I'd somehow been lying to myself all my life, despite how much I loved Sha're. Thinking I was straight when I was...and here, I'd fallen in love with my best friend. And when had _that_ happened? Because I had no memory of it! And what was I going to do about it, what could I do about it now that I knew how I felt?"

For Daniel, knowledge was usually followed by direct action; Jonathan had not forgotten that.

"But then, I started remembering. Bits and pieces. All out of order. Hollywood Squares and Match Game. Pizza night. Mixed up with the details of our missions. I remembered how it started for us. First, you and--Jack and Thor, after Sam crashed the Biliskner to destroy the replicators." Jonathan flinched. "Then me and Jack, afterwards, at that coffee shop, sixty miles off base. And," his hand tightened on Jonathan's arm and his voice became tense, "do you have any idea what that's like? Having the person you love, who said he loved you, pretend that it never happened? _Knowing_ and _remembering_ but having it, having all of _those_ particular promises you made to each other be meaningless?"

Anger jolted through Jonathan and he yanked his arm away. "Why, no, Daniel. I have absolutely no idea _at all_ what that might be like!"

A few ragged breaths and pounding heart beats later, Jonathan looked up to see that Daniel was very pale. "Oh," Daniel said quietly. "Oh. I'm sorry. I guess that you do."

"Yeah, whatever." Jonathan shoved his hands in his pockets and squared his shoulders. "Look, all of this is very interesting, but none of it explains why you're here. You say O'Neill won't talk to you, so what? That's never stopped you before. _I_ remember that. Make him talk. I'm sure you remember exactly how." He was surprised by the bitterness in his voice.

"And would you want to force this particular issue, Jonathan? Would you want me to force it, if you were him?" Daniel had chosen his words with obvious care and he was closely studying Jonathan's reactions. It gave him a pang to remember just how good a trained observer Daniel was, how satisfying it was--it had been to watch Daniel work, to watch his back while he worked.

"Assuming my memories are reliable, I'm the one who forced the issue before, right? I'm the one who took the first step and never looked back. Who never had a single doubt what we were doing was right, despite the regulations and the risks. _I_ countered every one of Jack's objections, _I_ wouldn't take no for an answer, every single time."

Jonathan took a slow, deliberate breath. He'd been beside Daniel in nearly every kind of life and death situation and he'd catalogued his every facial expression, from battle, to cultural puzzle, to making his peace with death. Daniel's current expression was a familiar one of equal parts terror, intellectual challenge, and steadfast resolve. It made him very uneasy.

"What I need, Jonathan, is to know why he won't talk to me about what happened, about what we were--what I thought we were to one another. Why he would want to pretend that it never happened. If I," Daniel's voice shook briefly before settling, "If I somehow coerced him into something that he didn't really want."

The floor seemed to dip briefly beneath Jonathan's feet. "I am not him, Daniel," he warned, despite knowing that it wouldn't deter Daniel at all.

"Now who's bullshitting whom?" Daniel said, the anger clear in his voice. "You're close enough, and you know it."

And there it was, the ugly crux of the matter. Being the 'next best thing' to the Real O'Neill, was _not enough_ for Jonathan McNeal.

Janet had promised him that one day, he would stop comparing himself to the man he'd been and learn to simply _be._ So had Janis, for that matter. Thor had a different take on things, what with his 'Focus on the future, Jonathan' and his magic Asgard slate of cool stuff he encouraged Jonathan to poke at whenever high school, or life in general, became unbearable.

Some days, Jonathan had even convinced himself that he'd left Jack O'Neill behind for good. Entire weeks would go by without a single reminder of the many roles he'd played or the people he had loved. Then _wham_, out of nowhere! A situation, a thought, or a feeling would evoke a cascade of sense memories and he would be left alone and shaking: a solitary man whose raw and still-bleeding bonds had been severed, but not cauterized by O'Neill and Thor's decision to let him live.

In that moment, Jonathan felt something deep inside him snap: whatever happened next, there would be no going back.

"You say that, Daniel, but you don't _know._ In fact, none of you, except for Janet, really seemed to want to know, or understand." True, he could have picked up a phone himself and called them, too. But he was in no mood to be fair.

"Jonathan--"

"No, you listen to me." He held up his hand, feeling like most selfish prick ever born for what he was about to do, for not going with the comfortable lie. For tainting any chance of a happily ever after for Daniel and O'Neill. He'd long known that when it came to love, complete honesty was rarely the best policy. But he also knew Daniel Jackson. The man wanted the truth and would camp out in Jonathan's living room--or stalk him into the next year--until he got it.

"If I tell you how it all went down, from my point of view. If I tell you what you want to know: that when I was him, I did feel coerced, but not in the way that you mean, what then?"

Daniel went absolutely still.

"If I tell you that I wanted it more than anything." _That I still want it._ "That I felt what we'd found together was some kind of perverse, undeserved reward for all the shit things I'd managed to survive. That after we'd saved the earth, or the people on PX-whatever, or thwarted whatever Goau'ld plot, I felt that you and me were something that was for just for me, for the good of _me._ Not the good of all human- or Asgard-or Tok'ra- or Jaffa-, or who ever-kind."

"Jonathan--" Daniel began, reaching towards him.

"Shut up, Daniel!" Jonathan stepped backwards, away from Daniel's outstretched hand, until he stood in the dining room archway. "You wanted to hear this, so you're going to hear it. You come in here and drag all this stuff up, and then you'll leave and--" _And I'll be here, alone, left to deal with it._ He broke off, shaking his head. "If I tell you that, when I was him, I felt torn between duty and having you, and that it was like living a lie but living the best kind of truth, too, and that I would never have had the courage to do it were it not for you."

"Oh, god."

"If I tell you all of that and you walk out of here, back to convince him. Or, who knows, maybe you'll decide to let him keep pretending? I don't know. Whatever you decide to do, then damn it, Daniel, what then? Does any of what I've said make it better or worse for you? Or for him?" _Or for me?_

His voice rang out, strident and harsh. Daniel was staring at him, pale, lips parted and shaking, from halfway across the room. He could say with certainty that he had never seen _that_ particular expression on Daniel's face before, and he never wanted to see it again.

"Look. O'Neill might want to pretend because, deep down, he's a conflicted, emotional coward and because he's used to the people he loves leaving him." Jonathan clenched his jaw and gritted his way through the rest; he didn't care how selfish it was or how deeply wrong it might be to hope that they would make any difference to Daniel if he chose never to confront O'Neill. "_I_ might want to pretend because you'll never want--" _me_. "Because I can never have what we had ever again. Do you get it, Daniel? I am not him, so I _do not know why_ he won't talk to you, and I don't know whether you should force the issue or not! I don't know what will happen if you do."

Large, warm hands closed over his shoulders and Jonathan started. When had he closed his eyes? When had Daniel gotten so close?

"Jonathan, I understand, now." Daniel's voice whispered past Jonathan's ear, ruffling his hair. "And I'm sorry. I was only thinking of myself, of Jack. I didn't think how difficult this might be for you. I should have, but I didn't. I am so sorry."

He turned his face away, unwilling to see Daniel's pity. Or to breathe in his familiar aftershave any longer than necessary. "You keep saying that as if it should make a difference."

"It doesn't?" Daniel's voice broke over the words.

"Why should it? You came here for you and O'Neill, didn't you?" _Not for me._ Jonathan shrugged off Daniel's hands and moved fully into the front room. Travell bounded from her spot on the couch and sauntered over to him. He scooped her into his arms and stroked her fur until she began to purr. Maybourne was probably still under the couch, cowering from their raised voices.

"I'm here for you now." Daniel walked over to him but wisely stopped an arm's length away.

"Sure you are. Because you desperately want a piece of this." Jonathan gestured at his skinny, adolescent body with one hand.

Daniel didn't manage to school his expression quickly enough.

"Yeah, exactly." He dropped Travell to the floor and crossed his arms. Surely the rejection hurt less because he'd been expecting it?

"That wasn't what I meant, Jonathan, and you know it." Daniel did touch him finally, gripping his shoulder. "I'm here for my friend."

"Whatever." Jonathan waited a beat, then ducked away from Daniel's grasp. The clock on the shelf read ten after eight and right then, he decided that he'd had enough emoting for one night. He'd sure as hell had enough _bonding_ with Daniel. He took the few steps into the foyer. "You got what you came for. Now..." He gestured towards the front door and didn't say, _Don't let it hit your ass on the way out._

Stubborn as always, Daniel stood in the center of the room, arms akimbo, with Travell twining around his ankles. "This isn't the first time one of us has had a...a copy. You're still my friend, Jonathan."

"Really. Because the way I remember it, the _four_ of us didn't exactly try to keep in touch with our copies back then." We were happy enough to let them sacrifice themselves for us, for the SGC's greater mission, though, can't forget that. "Not to mention, O'Neill and Jackson weren't exactly fucking each other then, were they? Kinda complicates things, don't you think?"

Daniel flinched, but met his eyes steadily. "We can get past the awkwardness if we try."

And he sounded so certain, so very sure of himself, of them, so damned _committed_ to trying that Jonathan wanted to put his head in his hands. It was the same certainty that had obliterated every one of O'Neill's objections and transformed their friendship into what had become his everything. When he was O'Neill, no matter how much he protested, deep down, he had been more than willing to be convinced. But, Jonathan was wasn't sure he wanted Daniel's zeal focused anywhere near him. He wasn't certain they _could_ be friends, that he could bear the pain of it.

Jonathan sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Daniel, listen," he said. "Like I said, you got what you came for. It's time for you to leave."

"But--" he blurted, then stopped mid-objection and gazed at Jonathan so intently he could almost feel its phantom touch trace over his face, his limbs.

He wearily braced himself for an argument, but Daniel surprised him, as Janis had an hour earlier.

"Fine," Daniel nodded once then made his way through the room and into the entryway. "I'll go now."

Stunned and more than a little wary, Jonathan flipped the lock and opened the door.

"I'll go now." Daniel repeated as he brushed past Jonathan on his way out. "But, I will definitely be back again. To see my friend."

Numbly, he watched Daniel cross the porch, walk down the stairs, and unlock his car. Daniel moved like a man with a purpose, shoulders and stride steady. Jack O'Neill might have felt reassured by that body language: Doctor Jackson, along with his formidable intellect and skills, was on the case.

Jonathan McNeal felt only gnawing unease.

And a painful tightness in his throat.

*

For a long time afterwards, Jonathan stood in the entryway, his forehead pressed against the door and hand on the knob, counting his every breath.

According to Electra, meditation was medically proven to relieve stress, anxiety, and to increase focus. She'd even started a meditation club at school and harassed him, Darius, and Brett until they joined. Two days a week, twenty minutes at a stretch during lunch had segued unexpectedly into a twice daily habit for Jonathan. But its usual magic fell short tonight. He had a hunch that a year spent sitting zazen wouldn't have made so much as a dent in his current mood.

With a sigh, Jonathan finally straightened up and went to make sure Janis had fed the cats and changed the litter box. He also dumped the takeout cartons into the kitchen trash can. The only thing worse than steaming hot sawdust and snot was smelling it, cold and congealed, the next cold morning. On his way through the kitchen, he grabbed a bottle of [Grey Goose](http://www.greygoose.com/) from the freezer and scrounged up a fistful of the kitschy shot glasses he'd inherited from Janet.

Back in the den, he settled heavily on the couch, lined up the glasses on the coffee table, and filled them, one by one.

Screw homework and screw the ten mile run.

_Screw Daniel, too,_ he also carefully didn't think. Or take notice of the double entendre.

Between his feet, Maybourne finally made an appearance. He stuck one paw out from under the couch and swiped at Jonathan's shoelaces; cats were so strange. Rather than put a stop to it, Jonathan knocked back the first glass--_Greetings from the Lake Placid Olympics!_\--and then the second--_I Got Soaked at Orlando SeaWorld!_ After the third, quaffed from glass painted NightGlo green and proclaiming itself to be _A Shot In The Dark,_ Jonathan finally felt his muscles begin to unclench. He leaned back against the cushions and allowed the comfortable chemical haze to settle over him. A few moments later, Travell and Maybourne both joined him, settling across his thigh and under his left arm. He carded his fingers through their fur until both cats purred and the lump in his throat began to dissolve.

The house was silent, save for the hum of the refrigerator, the creak of the house as it settled, and the intermittent buzz of his cellphone in his backpack as it recorded incoming texts and calls. Muted street noise drifted in, kids driving by with their stereos cranked up, people taking out the trash, car alarms, sirens in the distance. True night had fallen and glow of the two table lamps seemed as insubstantial as the streetlight filtering through the curtains and blinds. The world felt remote; his existence seemed insignificant and irrelevant.

If he disappeared off the face of the planet right now, forever, no one would notice or care.

His hand clenched in Travell's fur and he felt light-headed. Maybe three shots of vodka on an empty stomach wasn't such a good idea.

Or, maybe Janis was right to worry.

Since Janet's death, Janis had stepped up her efforts to get him to reach out to his old teammates, preferably, and to strengthen his current friendships, as a last resort. She'd even concocted a plausible, unclassified explanation for his grief should he feel the need to talk about it with his school friends.

Like that was going to happen.

They'd had more than a few arguments on the subject, with Jonathan insisting 'It's not that simple, damn it!' and Janis responding with variations of 'And how's that workaholism, not-eating, and exercising-to-excess thing working out for you?'. Jonathan had hacked the passwords on her laptop and read her case notes and reports. Strangely, Jonathan had found her private uncertainties more reassuring than her public insistence that, though difficult, 'establishing new, and cultivating existing interpersonal connections' would eventually help him to pull his head out of his ass and move on.

Unfortunately, even if O'Neill hadn't perfected the Art of Manly Stoicism, 'reaching out' would have been damned near impossible given the layers of professional and personal secrets he'd accrued over a lifetime. It was easier to simply _not talk,_ than to keep track of which person was privy to which bundle of secrets. And Jonathan had inherited all of O'Neill's secrets along with an enormous, disorienting one of his own.

His phone buzzed twice more and Jonathan thumped the back of his head against the couch. It wasn't yet nine o'clock and nearly-full bottle of vodka or no, there were still too many hours until the dawn.

He considered calling Cassie but quickly discarded the idea. First of all, his phone was on the other side of the room. But more importantly, Cassie would hear in his voice all the things he didn't want to say. A lengthy, unwanted conversation would ensue, followed by an argument that he couldn't possibly win, only to end with her stopping out of school and catching the next flight home to Colorado Springs.

Returning Darius' possible messages were right out for a different set of reasons. For one thing, Jonathan needed to be infinitely more sober to cover for Daniel's unsubtle stalking; ditto for any of Electra or Brett's messages, too. For another, more complicated reason, Darius himself had all the subtlety of the typical horny, fifteen year old boy. And while Jonathan's body was fully on board with the idea, his brain wanted to lock himself in a jail cell for being in the same zip code with it. He and Daniel had that much in common at least.

Since Jonathan was neither desperate nor sober enough to 'reach out' to the few other people with whom he could have a somewhat uncensored conversation, he pushed the cats off his lap, dug the Asgard slate out from behind the couch cushions. He wouldn't retain anything he read, but he could at least stare at holograms of long dead Asgard dignitaries, extinct flora and fauna, or exotic should-be-but-weren't-impossible molecules the High Council would flip out over if they discovered he knew about.

Satisfied with the plan, he settled deeper into the couch cushions and placed his palm on top of the slate.

But instead of the familiar menu options, after a moment of digital static, Thor's face appeared on the screen.

The familiar, almond-shaped eyes blinked once. "Greetings, Jonathan."

Jonathan's cheeks burned. Not only had he accidentally drunk-dialed another galaxy, he'd also called the one person in the universe, other than O'Neill, who knew most of his secrets and with whom he shared an even more surreal erotic history than his with Daniel. And the one person who would see straight through his bullshit and call him on it.

"Thor. Um, hey. What's up?"

"I wished to see how you are faring." Thor's eyelid twitched. "Also, your current blood-alcohol levels exceed those indicative of sobriety for someone of your height, weight, and age."

Jonathan rolled his eyes; even extraterrestrials were tracking his bio-data now. At least Thor's interest was personal, rather than mercenary or prurient. "I wasn't planning on driving anywhere, Mom. You don't have to worry."

"Yes, but unless I have miscalculated the date and time of your current location, you also have school tomorrow."

Oh god, _school._ The room spun once and the couch seemed to dip. "Dude, way to be a buzz kill."

Thor pursed his nearly-non-existent lips. "I still do not understand why you must persist in this...schooling that you find so unpleasant. Education should be customized to each learner's needs."

Jonathan shook his head to erase the horrifying idea of being 'home-schooled' by Hayes and Allen. "I told you. To acquire age-appropriate social skills, via cultural immersion, and to reacquaint myself with the academic and cultural knowledge and practices common to individuals of my apparent age," he said, quoting one of Janis' official reports.

"I remember what you told me, Jonathan. Regardless, it makes no sense." It was unusual to see Thor so agitated. "You are bored--"

"Not bored. I've got this handy slate-thingy full of impossible stuff I'm not supposed to know about."

"--and frustrated--"

He stifled a groan. _You do not know the half of it, Thor._

"--and this ridiculous schooling, " his lip curled, "only serves to emphasize and reinforce your isolation."

They stared at one another for a long moment, that strange lump forming in his throat again.

"It's not that bad," Jonathan finally said.

"It is exactly that bad."

More moments passed during which Thor's image on the slate seemed increasingly smeary; the vodka must have finally caught up with him. Jonathan blinked repeatedly until the image came into focus again.

"Okay, yeah. It's that bad," he conceded. But he wasn't going to discuss it. Not while three sheets to the wind, with an ancient guy who'd been around this particular block more than a few times, and who could talk circles around him when he was dead sober. "So, anyway, what's up with you? Kicked any goau'ld ass lately? And why is the reception so damn good on this thing? It's like you're right next door."

"That is because I am currently in your neighborhood, so to speak," Thor said, his eyes narrowed, clearly not fooled by the change in topic.

"Really? Whatcha doing way over here?" Jonathan said, then immediately wanted to retract the words. A strange note had crept into his voice. He sounded almost...hopeful, and no. Just _no._ He did not need Thor here, tonight, live and in person.

"Why are you inebriated, Jonathan?"

"Oh for chissakes, not you, too! Janis gives me enough shit about--"

"Yes, Jonathan, apparently, me too," Thor snapped, "Explain to me why."

Long minutes ticked by. Maybourne crept back onto Jonathan's lap and batted at Thor's image until Jonathan pushed him away. Thor's image seemed to waver but his glare did not.

He could click off the slate right now. There was no good reason for him to keep talking. He could end this pointless conversation abruptly, with finality, rude in a way that he would never be with Cassie; Thor could take it, and had taken worse from O'Neill and Jonathan, both. He could grab another shot, settle back and let the alcohol smooth away the rest of the jagged edges of the day, the week, the month. Enjoy the loose-limbed and sprawling fade to dreamless black that would result. Ignore the messages and emails next morning and sleep away the hangover. Twenty four more hours and he could disappear on his bike, high up into the mountains, anywhere, _somewhere else_, alone, no one to bother him. Or to remind him of all the things he couldn't have.

Instead, as if from a great distance, he heard himself say, "Daniel stopped by."

Thor didn't so much as twitch. "I see."

"Oh, really, Thor?" Jonathan said, suddenly furious. "And exactly what the hell do you think you see?"

Thor ignored the question. "Gather your things. Prepare to beam up in twenty six point three minutes."

"Oh, hey, no. I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying right here on this couch." To emphasize his point, he tossed back another shot and slammed down the glass, aptly labeled _My Bad Attitude is None of Your !@#$% Business_.

"I assure you that you are not," Thor said, then without warning, he ended the connection.

Jonathan stared at the blank screen for a moment, then yelled, "Fuck!"

Startled, both cats leapt from the couch and streaked across the room to hide beneath the dining room table. Jonathan clenched the shot glass in his fist and drew back his arm, but found that he was unable to hurl it at the wall as he'd planned.

Janet had loved these ridiculous glasses, hundreds of them, with messages profane, prosaic, pornographic, or philosophical; she had collected them for over twenty years.

"Fuck," he said again, more quietly and passed a shaking had over his face. Thoughts raced through his mind like fish through a fast-running stream, a silvery ribbon, too swift to snatch. After a few minutes, he didn't bother to try.

The burn from the fourth shot washed over him and Jonathan let the back of his head thump against the couch.

Eventually, he closed his eyes.

*

He awakened to the sound of sea birds and waves upon the beach.

Despite his headache, the rhythmic susurration of the waves was soothing. He opened his eyes to familiar lavender sands and a pale blue sun arcing towards the horizon; Thor had brought him to _their_ beach. The knowledge eased a pain so deep, one he'd lived with for so many months that he'd grown resigned to its presence. Jonathan sat up slowly, brushing cool sand away from his face. He took a deep breath and let the realization wash over and through him: perhaps some things were not lost to him forever.

Away to his left, the beach curved outwards, rising up to form a low cliff, one arm of the cove where he'd awakened. A clump of trees clung precariously to the edge. Off to his right, the beach was flatter, sloping gently towards the waves, the dense vegetation and trees set far back from the surf. A line of seaweed stretched over the sand at the high tide mark and purple and white shells pebbled the sand. A breeze ruffled his hair and Jonathan lifted his chin into the wind. Like the vodka, the anger and grief had finally burned from his blood. His mouth tasted of ashes, but he welcomed the numbness--a poor counterfeit of peace.

Farther down the beach, a tall figure left the shelter of the trees and strode towards him, its long, dark hair streaming in the wind. Jonathan managed a smile, though his cheeks felt stiff. He knew he was in for a tedious lecture from Thor, but found that he really didn't mind. Stepping away from his life, if just for a moment, revisiting this cove, was more than worth the price.

Though the surf was gentle this morning, somehow, Jonathan's face was wet with spray. He brushed the moisture from his cheeks, then pulled his knees to his chest, dug his bare toes into the sand and waited.

There were storm clouds on the horizon, but for now at least, the sky directly overhead was clear.

_Finis._

Feedback welcomed either here, or at my [LiveJournal](http://kaiz.livejournal.com/201074.html?mode=reply)!

**Author's Note:**

> This timestamp takes place within the [Gone Fishin'](http://archiveofourown.org/series/2306) universe, shortly after Janet's death, and [Keeper of Secrets: Janis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/60256). I'm not certain how much sense this story will make unless you've read the other stories in the series.
> 
> For Arsenic who's been waiting for this one for well over two years. ♥


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